Little-Acorn
Gold Member
He is.If Marco Rubio is such a smart man about the Constitution,
Not in the way big-govt leftists wish it were - one that can be re-interpreted into unrecognizable shapes any time they'd like to give govt new powers, or take powers from the states.does he understand that the Constitution actually IS a living document?
A better description would be that the Constitution is an enduring document. Its general philosophy that the Fed govt can only have powers that are explicitly listed in it and its amendments, and that 3/4 of the states must approve any changes, makes it the enduring document it is.
Exactly.The Founding Fathers made sure of that and understood that eventually, as the country changed, the Constitution should be able to be changed, which is why they allowed for it to be amended as required.
And big-govt leftists have had to resort to chicanery, lies, and doubletalk to try to pretend the Constitution gives govt the power to expand enormously as it has. They knew that if 3/4 of the states were asked for approval of everything from Social Security when it was founded, Welfare when it was founded, a host of initial agencies (OSHA, EPA, DOEd, ATF, HHS, DHS etc.), to Obamacare when it was enacted, etc... the leftists knew they all would have rejected out of hand by the states.
So they had to pretend they were tax programs when they clearly weren't, or pretend that they had some vague connection to Interstate Commerce when they didn't, or pretend that the Welfare Clause gave govt sweeping powers when it didn't, etc. etc.
It's clear why big-govt liberals are appalled by the notion that we should interpret the Const in the way that the people who wrote and ratified it did. The people who wrote and ratified it would never dream of allowing such massive govt usurpation, without a long and cumbersome process of approval for explicit amendments. And the Framers knew that the states would reject such thengs out of hand, since Americans by and large don't want big government.
The Constitution is a fundamentally conservative document, limiting a central government to only a few powers and forbidding all others unless the entire country (or 3/4 of it) approves. And in the 200-plus years since it was written, the American people have NEVER wanted to change things into the big-govt nanny state the liberals have been imposing on them through chicanery and fake claims of "legality" (while carefully avoiding the amendment process).